News

Interview: Jasper Gerard meets John Denham: Why I had to desert Tonys army

A politician resigning on a point of principle: surely such creatures are as extinct as the Tyrannosaurus rex? Well, the species has just been reborn. While Clare Short’s conscience has gone into hibernation yet again, other beasts have turned back the evolutionary clock to a more moral age.

John Denham’s resignation from the Home Office was shaded by Robin Cook’s sensational exit, but it stung Tony Blair more: when Denham won Southampton Itchen in 1992, the south was still a Labour-free zone. As our man says: “I was new Labour before new Labour.”

His resignation was damaging to Blair because he might just have been the next Blair: the prime minister would place his arm round Denham and coo that here was the party’s future. Cook had already burnt his career, but Denham’s was simmering sweetly, rendering his sacrifice the more remarkable.